Mr. Speaker, I did not expect to rise to speak to the motion but I think the member for Portneuf is to be congratulated in the sense that he has certainly isolated a problem of the modern age.
I have encountered that problem in a way everyone in the House of Commons has experienced it which is directly related to the business we do. In my constituency office there have been occasions where my fax machine has been jammed for an hour or so receiving about 30 pages of talking points on some piece of government legislation. The irony is I would have already heard that information from caucus debates but occasionally, staff members in the ministries get a little carried away and send us more fax material than what we really want. I see some members are very
sympathetic to this point and I am sure members of the opposition have the same problem.
I quite agree with the earlier speakers that this is not something which is best addressed by amendments to the Criminal Code. When we do get into the business of in any way limiting freedom of expression, freedom of publication and freedom of speech by the use of the force of law, we run all kinds of dangers with respect to a fundamental liberty.
In the case of the use of facsimile machines for sending junk mail, as the member for Portneuf said, who defines whether it is junk mail or something else? He did not attempt to cover the question of facsimile transmissions received that contain pornographic material or deliberate untruths. If we attempt to regulate this it is very like pornographic material. There is a blurred line that we can never be sure of where we invade into the area of genuine freedom of expression.
Similarly I reject the suggestion of the member for Portneuf that the CRTC should get into this field and come up with some kind of regulation that could be imposed on the distributors of this type of junk mail by facsimile machine. The reason is similar to that of putting it in law as a Criminal Code offence. We run great perils as a society when we give arm's length bodies control over how we express ourselves.
The CRTC after all is an unelected body. It is a body that is at arm's length from government. It is a body that is at arm's length from the people. It is very dangerous to give it any more power than it has already. I have to say I am not a great fan of the CRTC. I feel in many respects it is out of touch with the communication needs of the country. It indeed needs to be reviewed.
For myself, the solution to the problem is to come from the marketplace. The solution is essentially technological. We will see some bright inventor or perhaps some industrial giant develop a code system. An individual's fax machine will have a secret code which, when it is contacted by an external fax machine, will not permit reception unless the code is given by the sending fax machine. I am fairly confident this is on the horizon.
I have some interest in the whole question of communications intelligence. I can say with some authority that a great deal of research has been done in Canada, the United States and Britain in the communications security establishments which exist in those countries on the whole question of the security of facsimile transmissions and all kinds of electronic transmissions. The possibility of having a password or code on a receiving machine is very much within the realm of an immediate possibility.
The idea is very similar to call display on a telephone which is a relatively recent innovation of the telephone companies. Call display can be bought from Bell Canada, as can the option of not having call display. With that option, a person's identity is kept secret and nothing appears on the call display when phoning another person. That same technique could be used on a facsimile
machine. A secret numerical code could prevent a facsimile machine from receiving a transmission.
This will all come from market forces which, as the member for Crowfoot suggested, are to be key in this. It was mentioned that we are now in the era where copies of newspapers will be delivered electronically to fax machines. It will be perfectly useless if a newspaper is going to be in competition with every other newspaper for a fax machine. The only way the delivery of newspapers by fax will work is if the newspaper can respond to a secret password on a fax machine.
In the end it will be market forces. It will be technology that will solve this problem. I congratulate the member for Portneuf for bringing the matter forward because this is the place where the issues of the day must be debated. We must show that we are au courant with the issues of the day and bring some the solutions to some of the problems which confront us from time to time.